


Musica Universalis

by HoneySempai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dancing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Music, M/M, Slow Dancing, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneySempai/pseuds/HoneySempai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean and Cas discuss music, end up dancing, and start to figure something out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Musica Universalis

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural nor “Love of My Life” by the Everly Brothers.
> 
> Notes: This takes place sometime in the future; Castiel has his grace back but has not returned to Heaven as he’s understandably not popular there. Destiel is a semi-established relationship.
> 
> The concept of musica universalis has its place in history, and more can be found about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis 
> 
> I have only just started watching Supernatural (watching seasons 1 and 9 at the same time) so please forgive me if I contradict something established in the canon ^.^
> 
> "Love of My Life" can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6u-Li-AE9c

Dean regretted his decision to let Castiel stay in the Impala while he made a quick dash into a convenience store when he returned to find Castiel sitting in the driver’s seat, intently staring at the dashboard. From his angle Dean fathomed that Castiel was messing with the radio, and this suspicion was confirmed as he got closer to the car and leaned in through the open window.

“Just ‘cause you’re in the seat doesn’t mean you’re the driver.”

“As the car was parked, I figured that normal rules regarding music could be modified slightly.”

“You figured wrong, Cas. Scooch over.”

Castiel did as commanded, fumbling his way over the gearshift to the passenger seat. Dean smirked as he opened the car door, sliding into the driver’s seat with much more panache. He noticeably grimaced when the station Castiel had turned to blared out its self-promoting jingle, establishing itself as a player of Golden Oldies. 

“Really?”

“I liked what I heard.”

“Well you will have to like something else besides schmoopy love songs from the 50s, because as soon as I turn the engine, the station’s changing.”

Dean was proved to be something of a liar, or at least easily thwarted, when he started the car. When the radio recovered, the DJ’s announcements had ended, and had been replaced by the sounds of a guitar gently clipping out an old-fashioned homage to—or perhaps rip-off of, were Dean feeling particularly unforgiving—Spanish aural aesthetic.

“Shit, I haven’t heard this song in years,” Dean said, unguardedly.

" _You _listened to this kind of music, Dean?” Castiel asked, eyes glittering wickedly.__

“I had parents at one point, Cas. They listened to this kind of stuff. Sometimes they did so around me.” There was clearly bitterness in his voice, but he didn’t immediately turn the song off, instead occupying himself with putting the car in reverse and pulling out of their parking space.

“I am sorry if I touched a sore spot,” Castiel said, laying a hand on Dean’s arm.

Dean shrugged, tighter than he wanted to. “’S’fine.”

Castiel was forced to let go of Dean’s arm in order to let him steer. Left with not much else to say, he returned his attention to the song. The melody was catchy; the harmony crisp and close, though the singers’ diction could use work in some spots. The lyrics were simple, almost banally so, but there was a certain understated charm to the piece as a whole, a sweetness to it that made it infinitely listenable. 

“Music is so different here.”

Dean flicked his gaze over to Castiel. “What’s that?”

“The music of Earth is very different from that of Heaven.”

“Didn’t realize you guys did music up there.”

“Of course we do.” Castiel looked mildly affronted. Dean nearly smirked at how cutely the expression sat on Castiel’s face. “You humans even have a name for it. “

“Do we now.” 

“Musica universalis. The “music of the spheres”.”

Dean had come across the phrase at some point. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to be literal sound.”

“Humans may have become aware of it, but that doesn’t mean they can hear it.”

“So how’d we come across it?”

“Someone grasped it as a mathematical concept several centuries ago.”

“Ah.” Snore. “So what’s this musica universal studios supposed to sound like?” Dean asked, grinning as he turned the volume down, but not off.

Castiel glared at him; Dean winked back to mitigate it, and was somewhat successful. “The music of the spheres is the hum of the universe.”

“The bass line to the Big Bang, then?”

“…Something like that, I suppose, but greater. When you hear it, you know something, somewhere, is being newly made, or made anew, as the case may be. The music of the spheres is the sound of atoms turning. Stars forming. Planets moving through space.”

“Sound doesn’t carry in space, Cas.”

“Again, for _you_ , it doesn’t. For us—for angels—we not only hear it, it is easy to get addicted to it. It is pure tones and perfect harmony. Many positive interactions between humans and angels throughout history have occurred right after the angel has spent time listening to it.”

“Huh.” Dean turned the car, settling back in the seat. “So basically you guys can sit around listening to the universe, and it’ll make you be super nice to people.”

“You could put it that way, yes.”

“You _literally_ just described the act of getting high, Cas, you realize that, right?”

“ _Dean _.”__

“Math: Not even once,” Dean said, his grin widening to the point where it could safely be called “shit-eating”.

“I was trying to tell you about something _important_ to me.”

“Okay, okay, Mr. Sensitive, I’ll be nice,” Dean said, though his joviality faded when he saw Castiel turn his head away to look out the window, half-frowning. 

“After Father left, the music of the spheres was a comfort for many of us, including myself,” Castiel said in a low voice. “It reminded us that ours is a God of creation, not despair.”

“Oh,” Dean offered lamely.

“Some _did_ become addicted to it. So much the better for them, because they didn’t involve themselves in the war or any of our other misguided ventures. But others, when Father didn’t return, began to hate it. They considered it a false promise and stopped up their ears to it.”

Might explain why Dean had never heard Castiel mention anything about it until now.

“Sometimes…” Castiel shifted in his seat, “sometimes I think tuning out the music of the spheres is what turned some of us so destructive. What else can you be, when the sound of creation makes you _resent_ creation?” 

No one could make Dean feel like a smacked ass without even trying quite like Castiel could. 

“I’m sorry, Cas.”

Castiel didn’t reply, but did settle his hand on the gearshift; Dean took the invitation to reconciliation and added his own hand atop Castiel’s, careful not to accidentally apply enough pressure to actually change gears.

“If it makes you feel any better, that song—the one I said I knew—does something similar to me. The “false promise” thing, not the addiction thing.”

“How would that make me feel better?” 

Dean appreciated—genuinely—the naïveté that made Castiel’s question innocent rather than biting. “Well I guess it wouldn’t, but it might make you feel less alone.”

“I don’t need _that_ to feel less alone.”

Dean found himself squeezing Castiel’s hand. It wasn’t as though Castiel had ever been the life of the party, but ever since Castiel had elected to stay on Earth despite the Metatron mess being cleared up, he’d been even quieter than before. “Good to hear.”

“And that’s too bad besides, as I quite liked that song.”

Dean snorted. “That figures.”

“Might I ask why you dislike it exactly?”

Dean’s hand let go of Castiel’s to go for the radio. “You might, and I would answer you in a most profound manner, deep enough to make poets and philosophers weep, if the noise in here weren’t unbearably loud.”

“What are you talking about? I can barely hear the radio anymore.”

“Sorry, Cas, can’t hear you!” Dean mock-shouted as he turned up the volume. 

“Dean!”

“It’s too loud in here! I can’t hear a thing you’re—“ Dean mouthed the rest of the words, cupping the ear that was closest to Castiel, and doing his best to look distressed. Castiel made a face, knowing slightly better by now than to get flustered at Dean’s shenanigans, reached over, grabbed the wheel, and pulled the Impala out of the way of the oncoming traffic that Dean had unwittingly veered it into.

 

*

 

“I think you need to go to bed, Dean.”

“I think _you_ got to choose the music all day, so you’ve fulfilled, nay, _exceeded_ your decision-making quota for today.”

“Dean, don’t be a child.”

“ _You’re_ a child.” Dean punctuated the accusation with turning his back to Castiel and crossing his arms.

Castiel sighed, leaning back against, and then sitting on, the armrest to the couch. He’d watched Dean surreptitiously—or so Dean thought, since Castiel had noticed it, after all—sneak extra beer tonight at dinner, and then a little more as Sam and Kevin went through the process of crashing for the evening. Knowing that Dean might have started drinking at the same time that he started dinner, he estimated that Dean had imbibed enough to knock a humanized version of Castiel on his ass, but with Dean’s higher tolerance, it was just enough to make the elder Winchester brother halfway between tipsy and drunk. Coupled with self-inflicted sleep deprivation, it was making him even more unmanageable than usual. 

“You know who whines? Babies,” Castiel heard Dean mutter to himself, followed by quiet, yet high-pitched laughter.

So Dean was not only quoting himself from ages ago, but also giggling. He was definitely very punchdrunk, and maybe a little more actually drunk than Castiel had calculated.

“Come on, Dean. It’s time for bed.”

Dean whirled around, not to face Castiel but the radio. When Castiel had failed to make Dean go to bed the first time, he had found the oldies station again and blared it (well, as much as he could without disturbing their housemates, so it wasn’t actually very loud at all), hoping that he could cajole Dean into at least going to his room in order to escape the music. Dean had instead spent the evening wandering around the house: here, playing with his laptop; there, tidying up; everywhere, driving Castiel nuts. 

“Your song’s on again,” Dean said, pointing to the radio, and indeed Castiel had begun to recognize the music, but he was determined not to let Dean win this time.

“I’m giving you until this song ends, and then you—”

Castiel was interrupted both by the start of the lyrics and Dean abruptly asking, “You wanna dance?”

“I’m sorry?”

Dean began moving, in a way that looked to Castiel like incoherent flailing, but to Dean seemed like an imitation of some of the moves to Thriller. Both assessments were technically correct. “Hey, you’re the one who liked it.”

“And since when do you dance to, and I am repeating you verbatim," he even raised his fingers to utilize air quotes, ““schmoopy love songs from the 50s”?”

“I’ll have you know that I am a _beast_ at dancing to schmoopy love songs from the 50s,” Dean shot back, emphasizing his words with aggressive finger-pointing. 

Castiel wanted to continue to banter, but it was too amusing—and enthralling, in a strange way—to watch as Dean changed his movements to match how elongated the tune was becoming, going from tiny head and shoulder jerks to spreading his arms out alternately, leaning his whole upper body to either side as he did so. 

Of course it had to happen that the rug was not evenly laid, and Dean would step just up against the part that had been pushed up, like the crest of a wave, and down to the floor he would have crashed had Castiel not stood up and rushed the two-and-a-half steps it took to have Dean land on him, instead. 

“F’you tell Sammy about this, I will kick your ass,” Dean muttered; he would have sounded more threatening had his face not been smashed against the area where Castiel’s shoulder became his chest. Castiel sighed again and moved to straighten them both out; he attempted to push Dean back onto his feet but Dean was proving to be stubborn, and Castiel to be slightly weak-willed, because all he managed to do was slightly unbend Dean’s back and push Dean’s face up, making it rest on top of Castiel’s shoulder instead of against it. 

“So how _did_ you come to dislike this song?” Castiel asked. If he wasn’t going to be putting Dean to sleep—if he had somehow gotten suckered into swaying back and forth with Dean roughly to the beat, and being the only thing keeping the gruffly giddy hunter from collapsing on the floor—he was at least going to get his question answered.

Dean seemed to sense Castiel’s determination, and was compromised enough to bow to it, because he exhaled heavily, almost blowing a raspberry, and said, a little slowly and loudly, “This song came out when my mom was, uh…six, I think? Her folks liked it, she liked it, she played it at her wedding. And Dad played it every night for years after she died when he thought we were asleep. She had another song, "Hey Jude"; that was for us--me and Sammy--but this song was for him.”

“I see.” Castiel turned, in time with the music, just to see if he could lead Dean. He could. “What was the false promise?”

“Well, when I was little, it was that she would magically come back one day if Dad played it enough,” Dean mumbled. 

“And when you got older?”

“If you must know, that anything as permanent as a “love of my life” was in the cards for me, _Nosy_.”

Dean’s attempt at being flippant rolled down Castiel’s body and fell to the floor, almost with an audible thud, and Dean himself had to hide a cringe at his own words in Castiel’s shoulder.

“That song is very short,” Castiel said, after Dean had gone quiet, and the song played itself out.

“Yup. Short and sweet. “That’s all you can expect when you marry a hunter”.” Castiel raised his eyebrows, imagining a very young Dean making the same comment to his father, and getting the same response. Dean heaved a sigh like setting down a sack of charcoal and finally managed to straighten himself up. “All right, Cas, you win. Bedtime.”

Castiel responded by grabbing Dean by the arms and yanking him back, not so he was half-toppled over, but so that he was once again pressed up close to Castiel. The advertisement that had begun playing on the radio stopped short, and after a beat, the air in the room was once again filled with gentle, pseudo-Hispanic guitar music.

“Really, Cas?” Dean muttered, but not mean-spiritedly. 

Castiel neglected to reply in words, instead turning in time with the music again, this time with a little more dramatic flair.

Dean turned with him.

> Love of my life  
>  Come close to me  
>  Say you will always be true  
>  Our love must be  
>  Sweet destiny  
>  Love of my life, I love you  
>  No other love could thrill me so completely  
>  No other lips could satisfy me  
>  Baby, baby, don’t deny me  
>  My hungry arms  
>  Long for your charm  
>  Love of my life, I love you  
>  No other love could thrill me so completely  
>  No other lips could satisfy me  
>  Baby, baby, don’t deny me  
>  My hungry arms  
>  Long for your charm  
>  Love of my life, I love you  
>  Love of my life, I love you

When Dean woke up in the morning, the last thing he remembered from the night before was Castiel murmuring in his ear that “We can have something more than what our parents left for us, Dean.” 

Later, whenever Dean heard anything that could trip a memory of that evening, he would silently marvel that the song that used to keep him up nights physically aching over missing his mother, now put him out as easily and comfortably as a well-cared-for kitty content to lie in his favorite person’s lap.

As for Castiel, it wasn’t _quite_ the cosmic harmony that had always reminded him of the promise of newness and wonder and beauty. But in its own way, it managed to do the same thing. 

He maybe even liked it a little bit better.


End file.
